Battlerage

Tahquil

Shower thought: 
Given that it's been said many times hunting is still the same as long as you use your ability combinations efficiently - Does this mean hunting is harder and slower for lower levels as they don't have access to all of their rage abilities to create these peak efficiency combos?

Tael

Tahquil said:

Shower thought: 
Given that it's been said many times hunting is still the same as long as you use your ability combinations efficiently - Does this mean hunting is harder and slower for lower levels as they don't have access to all of their rage abilities to create these peak efficiency combos?

Spamming your simplest ability on cooldown is actually not that much less efficient in terms of damage output. For most classes, your biggest solo damage output (your "peak efficiency") in most situations is to use your bigger damage ability on cooldown, and only use your smaller one if you're going to have enough rage left to use your big one next time it comes off cooldown. That's it - that's the whole deal. The only exceptions are when you have an affliction that can allow you to avoid a mob hindering you or something that lets you tank larger enemies than you normally could or (maybe) sensitivity.

At least for solo hunting, there isn't really much of a sense in which there are complicated "peak efficiency combos", and without even doing things at peak efficiency, you're still not that far from it.

@Jarrod: It's applicable to all but 1 affliction. Every other affliction has a duration and you can consume it at the last possible second. Amnesia's the only exception.

One question I have is how consuming things works when the target has both of the afflictions that the attack is capable of consuming. Does it consume them both? Does it do more damage than consuming one?

Naverre

Disappointing that gmcp still only gives whole numbers for rage amounts. Any chance it could be updated to have a higher accuracy, like rage gain messages have, @Sarapis?

Stuneree

This new change seems really cool. Might actually come back specifically for this.

I read a few pages in the beginning and recents; anyone have any sort of brief review so far? Does anyone actually do bashing in groups now?

Klendathu

Stuneree said:

This new change seems really cool. Might actually come back specifically for this.

I read a few pages in the beginning and recents; anyone have any sort of brief review so far? Does anyone actually do bashing in groups now?

Brief review: It makes hunting more involved. Instead of just dor kill blah, you can pick specific extra (off balance / eq) stuff to do to your target - extra damage, an affliction - or you can help yourself or an ally (depending on your class). OK, you can still dor kill blah, but it'll take longer than if you actively hunt. For those people who complained bashing was boring, this adds more (optional) complexity. For those who didn't find bashing boring, this adds another layer. There are those who don't like it, and they are very vocal, but the overall feeling I get, not just from the forum, is that it's a positive change.

Can't comment on group hunting, not had the opportunity to try it out, but there were huge (cross-factional) groups on the beaches of Tasur'ke.

Tael

Stuneree said:

This new change seems really cool. Might actually come back specifically for this.

I read a few pages in the beginning and recents; anyone have any sort of brief review so far? Does anyone actually do bashing in groups now?

I have seen people asking for groups to bash pretty routinely since the changes went in, for the first time in real-life years.

It might just be the shiny newness, but it is objectively more efficient to bash in groups thanks to the way battlerage is shared (and the larger the group, the more efficient). Even if people don't bother to keep organising groups, there's still a nice incentive if you do want to group, so I doubt you'd have much trouble finding a partner or two if you put the call, even when interest dies down a little. The range of things that most people need a group to hunt has also increased quite a bit.

Nyghura

I love this so much:

Your guardian angel becomes translucent as she floats first through you and then a bloodied acolyte, absorbing your rage and passing it to him.

I wish I could draw because this would make an awesome pic

Klendathu

Nyghura said:

I love this so much:

Your guardian angel becomes translucent as she floats first through you and then a bloodied acolyte, absorbing your rage and passing it to him.

I wish I could draw because this would make an awesome pic

Don't suppose you have the line for Horrify, do you? I'd like to add it to my battlerage tracker

Brean

Daeir said:

Moss nerf was a bug and has been fixed.

This makes me so happy

Sena

It seems that stats don't affect battlerage damage, which makes stats a bit less significant for bashing than they used to be. I haven't tested collars yet, but I expect they won't have any effect either.

Reif

Moss nerf was a bug? That makes life just a little bit better now. Thanks for catching that, Daeir.

Aquil

Sarapis said:

Tael said:

Blah blah

multi-class 

Austere

Aquil said:

Sarapis said:

Tael said:

Blah blah

multi-class 

Just noticed that's a gif.  Has that always been a gif?  My whole life feels like a lie now. .also,  will gladly pay 100 credits to anyone who can make it into the garden and flip the big switch labeled "Multiclass" . It should be between  "Delete Veils" and "Delete Jhui" on the wall of Achaean wishes. 

Krypton

No, it's not usually animated.

Kuy

@Sena (or anyone): Is most of our bashing damage coming from our class attacks or our battlerage attacks?

Jarrod

On average, most will be coming from your standard bashing attacks.

However, anything that adds damage that isn't modified by stats to the total will reduce the overall effectiveness of those stats.

Klendathu

Kuy said:

@Sena (or anyone): Is most of our bashing damage coming from our class attacks or our battlerage attacks?

Class attacks. Most (all?) classes have three battlerage abilities which deal damage (usually level 1, 3 and 4 - this one is augmented by a specific denizen aff or two). The level 1 is usually comparatively very weak, the level 3 stronger and the level 4, when paired with the right affliction, is much stronger,

Sena

Kuy said:

@Sena (or anyone): Is most of our bashing damage coming from our class attacks or our battlerage attacks?

It looks like unartied with base stats, your class attack accounts for about 70% of your total damage, with arties and max stats it's about 80%.

[spoiler]For simplicity, I'll assume that only the two main solo damage abilities (ability 1 and 3) are used, and no damage is wasted (from things like overkill, shielding, or the denizen not surviving long enough to reach the long-term average). Also assuming that everyone averages 2 rage gained per second (that's what it is for alchemist).

Occultist, 12 int, no diadem/collar: Warp DPS is 166.67, warp+battlerage is 243.57 if you prioritise chaosgate (only using harry when rage has built up enough that you can use it without slowing down corruption), 241.54 if you prioritise harry. So warp accounts for ~68% of your total bashing damage, at base stats without arties.
Occultist, 19 int, diadem+L3 collar: Warp is ~320 DPS (estimated, I don't have the exact damage at 19 int), so it's ~81% of total damage.

Shaman, 12 int, no collar/skull pendant: Bleed DPS is 175.5, bleed+battlerage is 247.2 DPS if you prioritise corruption, 245.4 if you prioritise haemorrhage. It's worth noting that haemorrhage is is more efficient than corruption, both in terms of damage per second and damage per rage, but prioritising corruption still results in slightly higher DPS in the long run. Bleed accounts for about 71% of your total bashing damage.
Shaman, 19 int, L3 collar+L3 skull pendant: Bleed is ~300 DPS (estimated, I don't have the exact damage at 19 int), so that's ~81% of total bashing damage.

Red Dragon, unartied: Gut DPS is 253.33, gut+battlerage is 346.27 if you prioritise dragonblaze, 343.55 if you prioritise overwhelm. So gut is ~73% of total damage.[/spoiler]

Kenway

All the updates are great but they keep breaking all my stuff that I wrote when it first came out
Oh well, still awesome! Anyone who knows me at all knows that the fact that I'm actually hunting now speaks volumes about this change!

Darkender

I must say this is a step in the right direction, however there is one slight misstep here in my opinion. You have people like infernals and runewardens and paladins that have these awesome class-flavoured abilities (like the absorption shield, and regeneration and whatnot on someone else) but then the rest of us get stuck with cookie cutter abilities. No matter what it's called we mostly all have the same version of afflictions. I do think that we should all have these but EVERY class should at least have one awesome UNIQUE flavorful ability that feels very amazing and powerful!

Darkender

In otherwords sylvans could have something like... where they summon a lightning storm and it does an AoE effect damage over time effect to every denizen in the room, sentinels could have some sort of trap they put down that shoots out a random affliction every  5 seconds for 20 seconds, occultists could banish an enemy to the pit of golgotha for 10 seconds doing heavy damage, etc... this game is text based so there is literally infinite room to get creative here with badass abilities so we don't feel like a few select classes get super awesome abilities while the rest of us just do the same crap as the other people :-(

Jarrod

Sena said:

Kuy said:

@Sena (or anyone): Is most of our bashing damage coming from our class attacks or our battlerage attacks?

It looks like unartied with base stats, your class attack accounts for about 70% of your total damage, with arties and max stats it's about 80%.

[spoiler]For simplicity, I'll assume that only the two main solo damage abilities (ability 1 and 3) are used, and no damage is wasted (from things like overkill, shielding, or the denizen not surviving long enough to reach the long-term average). Also assuming that everyone averages 2 rage gained per second (that's what it is for alchemist).

Occultist, 12 int, no diadem/collar: Warp DPS is 166.67, warp+battlerage is 243.57 if you prioritise chaosgate (only using harry when rage has built up enough that you can use it without slowing down corruption), 241.54 if you prioritise harry. So warp accounts for ~68% of your total bashing damage, at base stats without arties.
Occultist, 19 int, diadem+L3 collar: Warp is ~320 DPS (estimated, I don't have the exact damage at 19 int), so it's ~81% of total damage.

Shaman, 12 int, no collar/skull pendant: Bleed DPS is 175.5, bleed+battlerage is 247.2 DPS if you prioritise corruption, 245.4 if you prioritise haemorrhage. It's worth noting that haemorrhage is is more efficient than corruption, both in terms of damage per second and damage per rage, but prioritising corruption still results in slightly higher DPS in the long run. Bleed accounts for about 71% of your total bashing damage.
Shaman, 19 int, L3 collar+L3 skull pendant: Bleed is ~300 DPS (estimated, I don't have the exact damage at 19 int), so that's ~81% of total bashing damage.

Red Dragon, unartied: Gut DPS is 253.33, gut+battlerage is 346.27 if you prioritise dragonblaze, 343.55 if you prioritise overwhelm. So gut is ~73% of total damage.[/spoiler]

I'd be curious for the numbers on artie'd Serpent before/after, since it modifies more than just damage.

Sena

Sena said:

Shaman, 12 int, no collar/skull pendant: Bleed DPS is 175.5, bleed+battlerage is 247.2 DPS if you prioritise corruption, 245.4 if you prioritise haemorrhage. It's worth noting that haemorrhage is is more efficient than corruption, both in terms of damage per second and damage per rage, but prioritising corruption still results in slightly higher DPS in the long run.

I made a mistake, the DPS if you prioritise corruption is actually 243.3. Prioritising haemorrhage is better (though still close enough it doesn't actually matter).

I thought it was strange that prioritising the less efficient ability somehow came out better, so I redid the math 3 times before posting, but apparently I made the same mistake every time when calculating corruption-first and never made it when calculating haemorrhage-first.

Aerek

Darkender said:

I must say this is a step in the right direction, however there is one slight misstep here in my opinion. You have people like infernals and runewardens and paladins that have these awesome class-flavoured abilities (like the absorption shield, and regeneration and whatnot on someone else) but then the rest of us get stuck with cookie cutter abilities.

The Knights got special fancy damage mitigation, but in return, the Knights don't give any afflictions to denizens. That means we don't get to play with the afflictions you get, (Amnesia, clumsiness, and sensitivity being pretty good ones) and aren't mutually beneficial to any other class. We're kinda vampires on the group, expecting everyone else to feed us our desired afflictions, and not providing anything in return except damage resistance, which isn't always needed.

And anecdotally, only the Paladin abilities seem worthwhile. The Runewarden and Infernal resists are cool, but they're also expensive and have long cooldowns, so I don't get much use out of them. If a denizen actually damages me enough to need them, they take too long to build rage, and last too short of a time to actually matter. Maybe they're good against Honors mobs, where you're gaining rage quickly off your group of 8+, but they still feel like the cooldowns are so long that against an Honors mob, folks will be dead before I can save them with Safeguard, or survive with Bulwark.

Aodfionn

Paladin Battlerage abilities are fucking awesome. 

Arador

Deathlink seems pointless to me as it is an inferior copy of Defend, a skill that does not have any prereqs apart from balance and equilibrium.

Soulshield is VERY situational but can still be useful. If you are not close to killing the target or plan to run like hell, don't use it, since you will get almost all of the damage back while the target still hits you. If it returned less damage after it fades, it would be worth it more of the time. Considering that these changes mean most people won't hunt things they can not tank for an extended period, I do not see it having much value in normal bashing. Handy as a desperate move when you are in trouble though and plan to get away.

I understand why Knight got tanking abilities, but with things like amnesia, you do get damage reduction while still having the option to burn the affliction for extra damage to the denizen.

Ahmet

Arador said:

Deathlink seems pointless to me as it is an inferior copy of Defend, a skill that does not have any prereqs apart from balance and equilibrium.

Soulshield is VERY situational but can still be useful. If you are not close to killing the target or plan to run like hell, don't use it, since you will get almost all of the damage back while the target still hits you. If it returned less damage after it fades, it would be worth it more of the time. Considering that these changes mean most people won't hunt things they can not tank for an extended period, I do not see it having much value in normal bashing. Handy as a desperate move when you are in trouble though and plan to get away.

I understand why Knight got tanking abilities, but with things like amnesia, you do get damage reduction while still having the option to burn the affliction for extra damage to the denizen.

But... you can defend one person and deathlink another.

Arador

That is just begging to die.

Sarathai

Arador said:

That is just begging to die.

Embrace Suffering?

Aerek

Ahmet said:

But... you can defend one person and deathlink another.

Is that ever practical, though? So far, I haven't found the situation. If I take a partner out bashing, and we hunt things we can handle, then we can handle them, and neither Bulwark or Safeguard are needed. I should just spam my damage abilities, and those specials are cool, but wasted. If I take a partner out bashing, and we hunt things we can't quite handle, then Bulwark and Safeguard take a while to build up enough Rage to use either of them, and then last for very short periods. (Bulwark is 10 seconds, Safeguard absorbs up to 40% of your health in damage, so 1600 damage for a 4000-health character. That's 2 hits from a Dun Fortress Orc. Not exactly tide-turning.) Even if the Rage for Bulwark/Safeguard is built quickly, and the short durations are still enough to matter, the cooldowns are 45 and 57 seconds, so if we "needed" them in the first 20 seconds, then we're probably going to die in the following 60 seconds without them.

So it's not that they're not good, it's that the conditions where they're actually useful are so narrow that I can't find them. I can't find a situation where I am bashing with 2 or 3 people, while hunting something that is just barely too much damage for us to handle, but not so much that we will die in the first 30 seconds of fighting it, and where the brief-lived effects are enough to heroically turn the tide and allow us to triumph before they're needed again.

It's just a lot of "ifs" that need to be concurrently true, and anyone with an ounce of statistics knows that when you start multiplying odds, they drop low in a hurry.